5 Years After Making The Jump To The NCAA, Penn State Is The #1 Hockey Team In The Country
Usually when you think of college hockey, you think of Boston College and Boston University. You think of Minnesota. You think of Michigan. You think of North Dakota. You think of your traditional power house schools. But today, for the first time in the history of college hockey, you think of the Penn State Nittany Lions. Who have been ranked as the #1 team in the nation for the first time in school history today.
What makes this so wild is the journey that Penn State hockey has gone on in such a short amount of time. Before the 2012-13 season, Penn State’s hockey program was still at the club level. They were playing in the ACHA in some rundown rink in University Park. But billionaire Terry Pegula (owner of the Buffalo Bills, Sabres, Bandits and Rochester Americans) came in back in 2010 to turn Penn State into a top tier program in the nation. So he donated over $100 million to his alma mater and the Pegula Ice Arena was built. Here’s a little before-and-after for all you kids at home.
Penn State was able to build top tier facilities for their hockey team. They’ve been able to get top tier equipment for their players. And with all of that comes top tier talent on their roster. They may not have the star power that a team like Boston University does. There’s no Charlie McAvoy on Penn State’s roster. They don’t have a Clayton Keller or a Dante Fabbro. There’s not Colin White playing for Penn State. But they’ve been able to grab a lot of untapped potential from the USHL and have put together a team who just swept a weekend matchup with Michigan State on Friday and Saturday. A team that swept Michigan 6-1 and 5-1 right before the holiday break. Their only two losses on the season so far have come against St. Lawrence and Ohio State. Again, this is a team that was playing D1 club just 5 years ago. And now they’re ranked ahead of everybody. That’s pretty fucking wild.
Looking ahead to the rest of their schedule, they have Ohio State coming up this weekend. Then they’ll play against Princeton at the Wells Fargo Center next Saturday. (Nice chance to catch a Delco vs Delco match up between Penn State’s Ricky DeRosa and Princeton’s Quin Pompi). They still have to play Minnesota and Wisconsin 4 times, and Michigan/Michigan State another 2 times. So holding on to the #1 spot in the B1G will be hard enough let alone holding on to the #1 spot in the nation. And then the B1G playoffs are a gauntlet. Quarterfinals on a Thursday, Seminfinals on a Friday and then Championship on a Saturday. So I don’t want to get too ahead of myself here, but give me the Nittany Lions in the Frozen Four. Coming for that ass, NoDak.
Pretty Ricky DeRosa. Pride of Delco. What a run for the kid.